Sunday, May 11, 2014

Too Much/Not Enough Information: Complaints

Why is it so hard to maintain an appropriate amount of information on anything in particular? I'm living a life in which I know way too much about people I don't care about, yet I am not quite sure if my dad is married or not. This lack of clarity can only be expressed in .gif form.

I'm frustrated because I'm trying to finish my research on my diarist, Anna. What I need, and all I could really hope to acquire in this type of case, is her obituary. I know her birth year, birth location, and probable location of death, which SHOULD make finding the obit fairly easy, and yet I have nothing.

Corresponding with her nephew's wife was not as fruitful as I had hoped it would be. Once she decided that I wasn't of much use to her for her own genealogical needs, she blew me off. SUCH TYPICAL. I did learn that Anna remarried someone named Charles "Chick" Davis, that she was living in Phoenix at least in the late 60s, and that her daughter married a doctor, which is why I can't find her by her maiden name. She did send a picture of Anna, though, which was worth a million dollars to me.

Ancestry.com has a social security death index entry for an Anne C. Davis (could easily be my Anna H. C. Davis), who died in Maricopa County in 1996. None of our online newspaper databases have a corresponding obituary, however. I think that means I have to drag myself into our disgusting main library and look at the microfiche. Seriously, navigating through that place reminds me of the old Simpsons Nintendo game. End of analogy.

If I can find the obituary, then it might include the married name of her daughter Colleen, which might allow me to locate her now. But if I have to search in the microfiche, then I have to look at every paper from that year. Because all I have is the year. Do obituaries only come out on Sundays? I need to locate someone who reads actual newspapers and ask them. Looking at microfiche is incredibly tedious even when you know exactly where you're going, so I expect that looking at all of the obituary pages for all of the papers in an entire year would take months, at least. And I'm not even sure I have the right year. Those death indexes are often slightly off, and that might not even be my Anna.

It might be easier to apply for a copy of her death certificate with vital records first just to be sure I have the right date, but they are somewhat tough customers at that office when it comes to handing shit over to non-relatives.

I wonder, if I found everything I needed and then located the daughter, if she would want the book. What if she packed the diary with a bunch of other Goodwill stuff because she hated her mother?

And yes, I could just ask my dad if he married his longterm banshee (actually, I have called her La Llorona for years), but he can be oddly secretive, and if he didn't tell me, then perhaps he doesn't want me to know for some reason that I suppose I will respect. He hasn't told anyone. He informed my uncle that he was considering doing it, then never followed up or announced anything. I only know because my uncle told my cousin, who told me. I assume they probably did marry because they each wear a matching Harley Davidson ring (real cool, guys) on their ring fingers. Dweadful.